Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So I bought this CO2 thing for my 50 gallon aquarium, and have disovered that it's got a number of faults.

The first problem, is that it's only supposed to be for aquariums up to 20 gallons. The second problem is that the device it uses to put bubbles in the water is godawful ugly.

The third problem is that, although it claims you can add water, and sugar, it doesn't want you to use yeast. Instead, you're supposed to use the Nutrafin proprietary "Activator" and "Stabilizer" packets, which cost a good deal more than yeast.

I've got a powerhead in my tank, and I was planning on putting the air hose from the reactor into that instead of the ugly diffusor thing, but apparently I need a reactor that's about three times the size of this thing.

I notice that the walls on this "reactor" are pretty thick. Would I need very thick walls to keep my reactor from breaking open?

Would I need three air hoses instead of one, to allow for the higher flow from a device three times as large?

And what exactly is in those mysterious "Activator" and "stabilizer" packets? Just yeast? then why two packets? IF I did just use yeast, sugar, and water, how much yeast would I use?

i think i said inthe other forum you posted but what works well is

a 2 litter bottle with the cap siliconed to a air hose the air hose leads into the tank and then either into a bubler or just let the bubbles come out of the hose. have the bubbles go up and into the powerhead witch fractures the bubble into thousands of tiny ones.

the mix:
6 cups of room temp water
1 tblsp of yeast
1 cup of sugar
1 tblsp of baking soda

swirl around and put the cap on carefully...if you squese the bottle when you let go it will suck water out of the tank.

once secure swirl water a few more times and the air shouolld start to move down into the water.

i have twenty gallon and with this i got bubbles in about 15 monutes.